


Piccolo

by SteadyLittleSoldier



Series: Cucciolo [2]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Baby, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kid Fic, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, fluffy fluff fluff, instagram posts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 01:01:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18510715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteadyLittleSoldier/pseuds/SteadyLittleSoldier
Summary: Elio meets the baby.(Part 2 ofCucciolo.But will make perfect sense even if you haven't read that one.)





	Piccolo

**Author's Note:**

> here have this brainpoop as I rot in my sickbed...

 

“Under the head, babe,” Olver says softly.

A tiny whine. Furrowed brows. Tiny fists rubbing eyes, and pouty lips before the tiny thing settles down again. 

Elio’s mouth is open, his eyebrows raised - panicking a little, a little in wonder. The baby feels so soft, too soft, as Oliver shifts the bundle of blankets onto Elio’s lap - the inside of his elbow secured behind the cotton soft neck of the baby.

The serenity comes back over the soft features as he rubs his face on Elio’s chest.

Oliver sits beside him, snickering softly.

“What?” says Elio, not taking his eyes off the baby, too scared to - least he arches and falls off or displaces his neck that, Elio fears, hasn’t quite learned to stay still on its own.

“He’s looking for milk,” he says, wrapping his arm around Elio’s shoulder and kissing his hair.

“Is he hungry?”

“Umm… no, it’s not meal time yet. He shouldn’t be. Babies just do that.”

“Can I touch him?”

Oliver chuckles. “Elio, you’re already touching him.”

“No, I mean..” Elio takes a leap of faith and brushes, as gently as he can, the few thin locks of blonde hair on the baby’s head. 

“You can touch him more,” Oliver teases.

But Elio takes him seriously and slowly discovers the whole of the baby. First, he dips his finger into the cheeks, traces the outline of the Cupid’s bow that replicates Oliver’s. He smoothes the skin of the chubby hands with his pointer fingers delicately, and when the baby arches his back in sleep and spreads his finger, Elio touches each one with his thumb and pointer, pressing the chubby palm against his own cheek. Finally, he contorts and leans down to press his lips against the tiny nose. This does it. The baby scrunches his nose before blinking his eyes open. 

Elio is met with the ocean. 

His jaw drops as he looks up at Oliver who is smiling at him. He looks back down at the baby who is now staring at him. “Your eyes…” Elio whispers. Huffing and smiling. He is holding a piece of Oliver, cradled in his arms.

For a second Oliver thinks Elio is going to cry. But he doesn’t. Instead, he looks up at Oliver again. “You’re a father now… that's... wow.”

Oliver scoffs, but the weight of the words settles on him soon. “I don’t know if I can call myself that.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Well… I don’t do much. I just visit him every now and then.  That’s not what fathers do. I’m not the one who has to stay up all night, juggle work and family, or- or feed him, wipe him every time he pees. I don’t think I have the  _ right _ to call myself his father.”

It’s when Elio softly wraps his hand around his wrist that Oliver realizes that he has been playing with the little one’s toes. 

“What did Vanessa say?” says Elio.

Oliver shakes his head, grabbing Elio’s hand instead. It still doesn’t cease to amaze him how thoroughly Elio knows and understands him. Elio knows these are Oliver’s words, and not harnessed from something Vanessa has said. He knows this is Oliver’s insecurities talking. And he is making it clear that nobody else involved thinks this of Oliver.

“You haven’t talked to her about it, have you?”

Oliver shakes his head again, his eyes on his son nibbling on his own fingers. 

“Oliver, you visit him every day after work no matter how tired you are or how much work you have. You spend your weekends with him. You do their grocery shopping. You make dinner every night. You take Vanessa to the doctor. Hell, you ignore my calls for baby,” says Elio scoffing. “And you don’t do these because you feel responsible for it. You want to do these. You want to spend time with your son. Oliver, you are worthy of good things.”

Oliver traces lines on Elio’s palm as he listens. “But it won’t always be this way.”

“No, it won’t. When I move back here, probably you won’t spend every weekend and eat every dinner with your son but he’ll be older then. He won’t need this much attention and Vanessa won’t be needing this much help. It’s not like Vanessa is gonna be single forever. And that’s the future. And if I’ve learned anything in my short life is that the key is to not worry about the future, or the past - just today, this hour, this moment.”

Oliver looks at his young lover. A smile blooms on his face. “Jeez, you read that somewhere?”

Elio narrows his eyes comically. “I’m sorry, someone once said that this voice of wisdom is my winning trait.”

“Elio Samuel Perlman,” Oliver whispers in Elio’s ear, “if you weren’t holding my son, I would tackle you down on this floor right now and kiss that smirk off your beautiful face.”

Elio grabs the locks of hair behind Oliver’s ear and turns his face to rub his nose against his. “My name is not Samuel.” 

He captures Oliver’s upper lip between his teeth before he sucks it into his mouth. He tightens his hold onto the blonde hair as he lets Oliver glide his tongue into his mouth and feels his hand snake around his back to grab his neck. 

It’s when they hear the baby cooing that they chuckle into each other’s mouth and steal one last kiss and busk in the realization of how easy it still is to lose the whole world into each other’s eyes.

 

 

 

After about three weeks of planning, scheduling and then rescheduling, they have squeezed five days out for Elio to fly to New York and spend them with Oliver. Elio was excited and terribly nervous to meet both the baby and Oliver’s ex-wife, Vanessa, which was why he had left it for the last day. 

When he woke up to Oliver’s butterfly kisses this morning, breakfast was put in front of him and Oliver was leaving to pick up the baby. Elio ate, showered, put on clean clothes, all the while talking to himself, convincing his head that everything was gonna be fine.

In the end, it was fine. It was perfect. Because it is Oliver - Elio tells himself - and nothing with Oliver is not perfect.

 

* * *

 

It’s late and Elio can’t really tell what led them here in the middle of the living room, wrapped in each other’s arms, while The Seal Lullaby plays in the background. He remembers Oliver saying something about how he sings this song to the baby when he gets to walk with his tiny head on his shoulder trying to put him to sleep. But it’s Elio’s head that's rested on Oliver’s shoulder now, not the baby’s, as they sway to the music. If you give Elio’s tipsy mind a minute, he can trace his way back and tell you all about how nervous he was when they drove to Vanessa’s place, how he saw Oliver sing to his son and how the little guy tried so hard to keep his eyes open but then it closed for the final time for the night and his breathing slowed, how he saw Oliver put the baby to his little crib and tuck him in, how they drove back, cooked dinner and ate it on the floor, with him sitting between Oliver’s legs, how Oliver opened a bottle of wine and Elio finished it. 

But he likes this. “I like this, Oliver,” he feels the need to let him know. He always does. As though this feeling, this precious feeling - he wants to make sure Oliver feels the exact same thing. Not just the moment, he wants to share this bubbly feeling in his chest. “It’s like Instagram filters, you know,” he tells Oliver. “What if I see this moment in Gingham and you in X-Pro II? It’s  _ frustrating _ …” And this frustration is why - or rather, what - distracts him from the question ‘how did we end up dancing to a lullaby in the middle of the living room again?’ 

“Oookay, you’ve had enough wine. Let’s get you in bed.” Oliver starts to move away but Elio clings onto him.

“ _ Nyet! Non... _ ” Elio whines. “Let’s finish the song at least.” He buries his face dipper into Oliver’s neck.

“The song has been on repeat for six times, babe.”

Oliver is met with silence but he doesn’t move away and continues swaying to the music, holding Elio tight to himself. He knows what this silence means.

“Hey,” Oliver nudges Elio. 

Elio pushes his hand away the first time he tries to touch his face. The second time he doesn’t have the strength, and Oliver puts both his hands on either side of Elio’s face and makes his watery eyes rest on his own. He rubs away the tears. 

His voice breaks as he says, “can we go to the balcony later?” 

“Of course,” Oliver whispers against his temple before tightening his arms around his body.

“I miss the balcony.”

“I know, I know…”

 

Elio flies back home the next morning.

 

 


End file.
